With the rapid development of technology, the world has entered into the information era of data communication. The Internet, which was established by the U.S.A. in 1968 and is considered to be the pioneer of the information highway, is the most famous one among the data networks of the world. By now, a great number of countries and areas have joined the Internet family. China already has several international gateways linking with the Internet—the biggest international web in the world—and the number of user terminals is increasing at a remarkable speed.
In order to transfer information correctly to its destination on the Internet, each computer connected to the Internet must have one unique address. For the time being, there are three kinds of address coding solutions currently in use internationally and domestically. One is the IP address, which is constituted of four fields of digits separated by decimal points; another is the “domain name”, which normally is constituted of not more than five sets of character strings separated by decimal points; and the last one is the “Chinese domain name hierarchy system”, which is constituted of three levels of domain names separated by decimal points and a slash. Although the above address coding solutions can assign each online computer one unique address, they all have the shortcomings of complexity, lack of unity and difficulty of remembering and inputting.
An IP (Internet Protocol) address is a unique global indicator for a particular host computer connected to the Internet. An IP address is in the form of a 32-bit binary address and is usually expressed by a series of denary (base ten) numbers and dots for conciseness. An example of an IP address is 210.38.128.33. The binary address is easy for machines to identify but difficult for humans to remember.
Domain names were developed for the purpose of human convenience. Domain names are composed of language characters, such as letters, numbers and symbols representing the characteristics of the host computer. Domain names correspond to IP addresses. When an operator inputs the domain name of a particular host computer, the domain name will be resolved to generate the corresponding binary IP address, which will be used by the machine to locate and connect to the particular host computer (network entity) having that particular IP address and domain name.
A domain name is sometimes known as a network address, since it is an indicator designed to enable the operators' use of the network resources easier. As such, domain names can be regarded as a dedicated tool for the (human) operator, with the IP address being the real address used by the Internet. Accordingly, a domain name is a logical concept and does not reflect the physical location of the host computer within the Internet.
A domain name server is used to resolve a domain name, that is, to convert the domain name to an IP address, where the domain name is composed of characters and the IP address is a binary address, with the composition of the domain name conforming to the structure of the Internet name. In an IP address, the network entity is considered to be the bottom layer and the operator to be the top layer. As such, the domain name is above than IP address and between the IP address and the operators. According to the layer structure defined above, the order from the top layer (operator) to the bottom layer (network entity) is as follows: operator, domain name, IP address and network entity.
However, with the expansion of the network, domain names have become more and more complex and sometimes difficult to remember. Network bynames—composed of simple and recognizable symbols or characters to further prompt the operators—have therefore also been developed. When a network byname is inputted by the operator, the network byname is first mapped to a domain name, and the domain name then further resolved to find the IP address. According to the layer structure defined above, the network byname lies above the domain name and the order from the top layer (operator) to the bottom layer (network entity) is as follows: operator, network byname, domain name, IP address and network entity.
Further consideration is now being given to accessing an E-mail box, or browsing the Internet an a simple manner which is easy to remember and administer, while allowing each assigned address to be unique. In particular, attention is directed to a method for assigning addresses to online computers, especially, to the method of assigning addresses to online computers in the form of full digital code.